Personal Research Projects

• "Mountains of Imagination: Perception and Place in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Northern Sierra Nevada Mountains." Book manuscript under consideration by University of Oklahoma Press.

  Perception and use of the northern Sierra Nevada mountains of California has undergone many changes during the two centuries this work examines. These changes have been roughly cyclical: the Maidu Indians were primarily domestic in their perceptions. The gold miners of the late 1840s and after were focussed largely on using the mountains as economic space. The settlers of the post-Rush era, however, were domestic like the Maidu. This era of farming and ranching was followed by intensive development of water, timber, power, and transportation resources, again primarily economic in nature. After the Second World War, domesticism has returned in the big way to the Sierra Nevada as exurban settlers have come to dominate local affairs. Many of these new settlers seek to take up ways of life that could be aptly described as "neo-Maidu." The work as a whole is oriented on the border between history and geography. The manuscript has been peer reviewed by the University of Oklahoma Press and I am now making requested revisions.

• "The Transmississippi Commercial Congress and the Federal Development of the Ameircan West." Article manuscript.

  After centuries of extensive development--the acquisition and rapid occupation of new territories-- Americans turned their attention to the intensive development of the American West around 1890. The following year, a group of western governors, congressmen, mayors, and businessmen formed the Transmississippi Commercial Congress to discuss western development and to pressure the national Congress to spend federal money in that development. No longer inconsistent with American political culture, such expenditures were essential to development of the region.

• "Cry California: Postwar Planning in the Golden State." Article manuscript.

  The explosive growth of California after the Second World War brought many unintended consequences and hidden costs. The effects of urban growth and environmental degradation on the quality of life in the state caused many to seek long-term solutions. The California Tomorrow Association, founded in 1962, was one of many organization seeking to plan for California's future in a way that the state's unique qualities could be maintained indefinately. Through their monthly journal, Cry California, and their controversial "California Tomorrow Plan," the organization led the way to better statewide environmental controls.

• Book project: Intensive development of the American West, 1862-1990. Now gathering notes and sources.

This project is a spin-off of work done on the Transmississippi Commercial Congress article. I will expand upon the intensive vs. extensive theme as a way of explaining the ultimate fate of the "Frontier" in American life.